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I Don’t Hate Christians

Man, I stepped in it today!

While monitoring a webinar at work this morning, I wrote a post on Facebook about churches not paying income or property taxes. As usual, the point was lost on a few people, and possibly educational and helpful discussion was derailed. Imagine that! (that was sarcasm).

During my lunch break I read another post by Augusta conservative radio talk show host, and my former roommate, Austin Rhodes about someone tweeting for Master’s winner Bubba Smith to “die in a fire” because Bubba thinks the Bible is right about gay people. The comments from Austin’s loyal listeners were all about Bubba’s freedom of speech, of religion, how he was right, blah blah blah, and people using the Bible to justify their support for Bubba’s (in my mind) backwards thinking. I stupidly participated in that thread, too.

And then came the private messages:

Again you make a post with the only possible intention to insult Christians. You need to read some history about why our country was founded

Typical faggy ass anti-Christian liberal

You used to be such a good Christian. What happened to make you hate God so much?

Let’s get this straight. I do not hate Christians! I am not anti Christian! I do not hate God!

I am an atheist, but all that means is that I have not been provided with any evidence to convince me that any such being as “God” exists, and the reasonable position is that there is no God – just as I don’t believe in unicorns, or leprechauns, or wizards. That doesn’t mean I hate God.

As for Christians, I’ll be frank, I have absolutely no idea what that even means. Seriously. Christianity has more denominations than Baskin Robbins has flavors. Some Christians support and actively campaign for marriage equality and others fight against it. Some Christians think the Palestinians have a right to their land and other Christians think Israel owns it all. Some Christians think the communion wine and wafer literally become flesh and blood, others eat a crust of bread followed by a shot of grape juice. Christianity means nothing. It is a pointless word.

I do not hate people who call themselves Christians. I admire some of them. I would rather stay far far away from others. It has nothing to do with their faith, but with their character. Thinking churches should be taxed (to be fair to myself, I didn’t single out “churches”) is not an indictment on the people who tithe those institutions.

If I hated Christians, or even Christianity, I would hate every single person in my family except for my wife and my son (and maybe a cousin or two), and I absolutely don’t hate my family.

If I hated Christians, I would hate most of the women with the Atlanta Roller Girls, including one of my derby crushes who also happens to be a minister.

I don’t hate Christians. I do, however, have a great deal of dislike for people who want to their faith to be the guiding law for this country. I am impatient with people who think America is a Christian nation founded on Christian principles. I have no desire to be around anyone of any faith who uses their religious beliefs as a foundation to discriminate against anyone. And I have no respect for anyone who rejects scientific progress and education because it interferes with their religiously narrow view of the world.

One thought on “I Don’t Hate Christians”

You know Ed, this kinda sums up how I feel in a lot of ways.
I grew up in a very religious household, and I know the Bible better than a lot of Christians, because I went to Xtian school from Kindergarten thru college, we did tons of Bible study and research.

Luckily, I was also taught a lot about critical thinking, and I’ve always had issues believing things I am told but cannot prove, touch, or see.
I am a good person. But i just do not believe this stuff.

Instead of the tooth fairy or Easter Bunny, I’ve compared it to the newer tradition of ELF ON A SHELF
Elf On A Shelf = Fear of judgement by an imaginary omniscient being makes people (children) “act good”, it controls behavior and everyone perpetuates the myth to keep the tradition alive. They even build bigger myths and stories around it (each set of parents changes the story a little for their kids) Because they think the target audience will “misbehave” if they don’t have faith in the story.